This is the post in which I blast Steve Miller Band for writing a song that makes no sense.  And I wish I could say it is the only song they did that doesn’t make sense, but that is not so.  The trouble with “Take the Money and Run” is that the melody is catchy, so you could hear it 50 times and be perfectly happy with the song.  And then one day, you finally pay attention to the lyrics instead of merrily singing along with them and you realize the serious issues within.

The song opens to describe our two main protagonists, Billy Joe and Bobby Sue.  Already, we are stereotyping some white people who live out in the country.  They “have nothing better to do”, which suggests they are unemployed.  They sit around and watch TV all day while getting high (using weed I am guessing).

Here’s where things get interesting.  They are so bored and high and broke, they decide to drive to El Paso and rob a man’s house while he is there.  In the process, they shoot the guy.  We will return to this shortly.

Then, as the song title suggests, they “take the money and run”.

Billy Mack is the antagonist who enters the story here, another clever name and one that was already in use (Billy).  He is a detective.  Someone decided to rhyme “Texas” with “facts is”, a grammatical gem.  Detective Mack is going to put those two away and then we are explicitly told “he makes his livin’ off the peoples’ taxes”.  It was a deliberate choice to explain this to the listener.  More on this shortly.

Finally, Billy and Bobbie who got separated met up the next day, continued running and were never caught.  And by the way, at this time they really want to hone in on the main message of the song.  “Go on, take the money and run”.

Ummm….

I hope that if you hadn’t recognized the stupidity of this story before, you do now.  It would seem Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue are meant to be the heroes of this story.  We are supposed to be happy for them because they are two young people without jobs, who get high, who get bored and rob a man in his own home while he is there, who shoot the man (and kill him I am guessing), who run from the law with the stolen money, and you know, hey, they got away.

Meanwhile Billy Mack is the villain of this story, he appears to be an upstanding detective, trying to do his job and bring these idiots to justice, but you know, he makes his living off the people’s taxes.  Are we supposed to be outraged that he is a government employee?   It would be different if he was a crooked cop or a vigilante or if he spent his time not doing his job and wasting our tax money.  But by all accounts, he is working hard on the case.

So to summarize, Steve Miller Band promotes robbery, murder/attempted murder, running from the law, and having a negative attitude towards government employees who do their jobs.

If only this song wasn’t so catchy.  Of course, now you can never look at it the same, unless you agree with them.

By the way, the money image is not my actual money, so please don’t get bored and try to “rob my castle”.